


go home. don’t look back.

by bestliars



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2014 Winter Olympics, M/M, Minnesota Wild, Team USA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 17:19:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1234705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/pseuds/bestliars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it's their last day in Sochi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	go home. don’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t like America, don’t look at me, stop.  
> (I love Ryan Suter more than America. Truth.)  
> but I love Stellarer best, because she’s a wonderful speedy beta, and also all the other reasons.

They lose the bronze medal game. It doesn't hurt like anything else. It doesn't hurt like Vancouver did. It's a new pain. This time the goal was gold. Anything less was going to be a let down, but Ryan didn't think they'd get this low. 

Four years from now, hopefully they can... 

It's still something to dream about.

But there's a long time until the next Olympics. It isn’t productive to think that far ahead. They have one last day in Sochi, then they're going home. The cities got ten inches of snow yesterday. Just getting into the house could be interesting. Ryan misses it all: he misses the snow, he misses the winter driving, he misses the dogs.

More than anything he misses their bed at home. It's big and soft, good for lying close together. It’s so much better than the dorms in Sochi, where they've pushed the two little beds beside each other. It will be good to get home. Just one more day.

A bunch of the guys are going out to the Black Sea again. Ryan thought it'd be nice to check out the beach without a camera following him around, and Zach said he doesn't care what they do. It's nice out, about sixty. The past couple of weeks have been a good break from the weather they're headed back to. It really is a beautiful day. 

Somewhere else in Sochi the gold medal game is being played without them. Ryan doesn't care what happens. He hopes that no one gets hurt.

He likes watching the waves come in. He's trying to figure out exactly what it is that makes the beach here different from the Atlantic or the Pacific or even Superior, all of which he's spent a lot more time staring at. The waves come up, hit the sand, roll back out. The grey sand meets the teal water meets the bright blue sky. It's beautiful. This is a part of the world he'd never had a reason to visit. It's halfway around the world from everything he knows.

Zach's sitting on the boardwalk, the brim of his hat pulled low over his face. Ryan thinks that that Zach is more interesting than the scenery. He always thinks this, no matter where they are.

He sits down next to Zach, knocks their shoulders together. Zach doesn't look up.

"So, Russia," Ryan says. Not small talk, just starting a conversation.

"Fucking miserable country," Zach says.

"Kinda pretty though," Ryan says.

That does get Zach to look up from his shoes. He raises his eyebrows, incredibly skeptical.

"Not as pretty as you," Ryan says. Zach cracks up, which was the point all along.

"Hey. You aren't funny."

"Sure I am, you think I'm really funny."

"I..." Zach trails off without saying anything.

Ryan throws his arm over Zach's shoulder. Zach leans in for a moment, then pulls away.

"I love you,” Zach says, finally finishing his sentence.

"See, I am funny. You love me because I'm funny."

"No. I love you _despite_ your sense of humor."

"I know that's a lie. It's ok though, I don’t mind."

Zach just shakes his head. He's smiling now, just a little bit. Ryan pulls him close again, and says right into his ear, "I love you too."

Zach shivers, and smiles. "You should stop, unless you want to get arrested for gay propaganda."

"That'd be one way to end the Olympics.” That’d being a higher note than getting shut out in the bronze medal game. Probably still a bad idea though. “There's no one else I'd rather get arrested with than you."

"That's...kind of sweet. But you're ridiculous."

Ryan shrugs. Zach isn't brooding anymore. He did what he had to. This trip didn't turn out the way he wanted it to. Now all he wants to do is have a nice last day before they go home. 

Ryan's done the Olympics with Zach before. He's done disappointed at the end of the Olympics with Zach before. What's different is that four years ago he didn't get to go home with Zach. He can't overstate how important Vancouver was to getting them to where they are now. It wasn't when they started to fall in love, but it's when Ryan started to understand that nothing else was going to come close to being as good as they are together.

They're great together. They're going to go home and have a strong finish to their season. Ryan's going to tell Granny how impressed he was, because the kid's twenty-one and was as impressive as all get out. Ryan's not going to dwell on how the games ended for him. That would be useless. He's going to remember the good parts, the games that they won, the nights spent in two too-small beds next to each other, with his arm flung out over Zach's side. He'll remember sitting on the boardwalk, trying to make Zach laugh.

He got to represent his country. He wore the flag on his chest, and his father's name and number on his back. Just being here is an honor, and a dream come true twice over. He's incredibly fortunate to have had this opportunity.

And he's as lucky as can be that he gets to go home with Zach. He's going home with someone he loves, to a life that makes him incredibly happy. That's more special than any kind of medal.


End file.
